UHM professor awarded news study fellowship in Germany

University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Professor Tom Brislin, chairman of the Academy for Creative Media, has been selected by the RIAS Berlin Commission and the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation to attend an inaugural weeklong fellowship in Germany focusing on news management.

Brislin will join 11 news directors and managers from U.S. radio and television stations to explore issues of news judgment, editorial decision-making and production with counterparts from German broadcast stations and networks in Berlin and Hamburg.

Brislin, a specialist in media ethics, is the only university professor invited to participate in the September 9-16 program, which will also include briefings with top-level German political and business figures. He is a former chair of the UHM Journalism Department and the School of Communications.

He has participated in several RIAS programs in Berlin and hosts German journalists for university visits as part of its U.S. exchange program. The RIAS Berlin Commission is a non-government bi-national organization established in 1992 to promote German/American understanding in the field of broadcasting. It is the successor to the cold war Radio in the American Sector network. It plans to make this first-time fellowship for news directors and managers a biannual program.

Other participants include news directors and managers from CNN, National Public Radio, Voice of America, and broadcast stations in Indiana, Alabama, Oregon, Texas, Washington, Utah and Wisconsin.

Brislin is internationally recognized as a media ethics scholar and has published articles in U.S. and Japanese academic journals. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Mass Media Ethics and directs the Carol Burnett Fund for Responsible Journalism Ethics Programs. He has also been invited by the United Nations University in Japan to deliver a keynote lecture on global media in November.

The Radio and Television News Directors Foundation is an industry-sponsored educational institution that promotes excellence in electronic journalism through research, education and training for news professionals and journalism students. Since 1992, the RTNDF has administered media fellowships as part of its German/American Journalist Exchange Program with the RIAS Berlin Commission.